“The biggest shortage in the world is not oil or food. It’s leadership without ego.” So saidBob Davids, who has successfully led six companies in diverse industries for 40 years, including a leading high-tech toymaker Radica and world-famous winery Sea Smoke Cellars.

Davids’ claim is explained by former General Foods CEO Clarence Francis:“You can buy a man’s time, you can buy a man’s physical presence at a certain place … but you cannot buy enthusiasm, you cannot buy initiative, you cannot buy loyalty, you cannot buy the devotion of hearts, minds, and souls. You have to earn these things.”

Of course, if a CEO has a big ego, if they think they are the smartest person on the block and show it permanently, they won’t earn devotion — in other words, engagement. However, ego is not only the CEO’s behaviour. It’s also embodied in organisational structure and practices. The bigger the ego and the steeper the hierarchy, the more controlling the organisational procedures and motivational — carrots and sticks — practices.

Hence, employee engagement requires a radical transformation of the command-and-control organisation. This starts with the CEO letting go of ego. I have never seen a successful organisational transformation without the leader’s personal transformation.

SHRINK THE LEADER

The power of any country or organisation resides with its people. When people see that their leader respects them and uses the power they granted him or her for their good, they give the leader even more power. They show loyalty and engage. But when they see their leader hoarding the power they granted, acting with contempt, they begin to withhold that power. They stop following the leader and start resisting his or her measures. Ultimately, they may pull the CEO down.

I met some leaders who did not have an ego to begin with. Their personal history shaped their humbleness, which hasn’t been altered by growing responsibilities. Most leaders though, needed several months of executive coaching. Then, a few needed a psychoanalyst, which is a good thing.

This idea of shrinking a leader’s actions turns our common conceptions about leadership upside down, but it isn’t a new thought. Lao Tzu, the founder of Taoism, wrote in the 6th century B.C. of this type of leadership he called Wu Wei. One transformational business leader Jean-François Zobrist described Wu Wei thus: “To act without acting is a laissez-faire that does not mean doing nothing, but means creating conditions in which things happen by themselves.”

Yet, the idea that effective leadership could mean getting out of the way — going fishing instead of dealing with pressing business issues — still feels paradoxical. It feels like anti-leadership, and so we ignore it as an alternative.

FIVE LESSONS FROM BOB DAVIDS

Bob Davids is among those whose actions and track record exemplifies this radically different leadership concept. He is not some superhuman leader. Such leaders, despite occasional successes, make their organisations permanently fragile — at the mercy of their departure or some surprise. Davids’ achievements have come thanks to being a very human leader, who refrained from acting when others might have found it irresistible.

Here are just five edited excerpts from more than one hundred hours of recorded interviews with Davids.

1. “Management is controlling the things you can. There are only three things that you can control in business: time, money, and quality. Note that there is no mention of people. You can’t control people, you can only lead people.”

2. “Micromanagement sends the message to the people that they are idiots. And as long as you think they are idiots, they will be idiots. In fact, you’re making them idiots. The people that go out and make you money, you think they’re idiots. Why do you keep them if they’re idiots?”

3. “As a CEO you should not want to be loved or even liked, but if you can’t earn the respect of every single person, you should quit. As leader, you are a failure.”

4. “Authority is not leadership. You can be the owner, chairman, or even CEO and not be a leader. Conversely, a supervisor or foreman can be a leader. It’s not authority that makes a leader, it’s whether people want to follow.”

5. “You’re in trouble with the CEO when he thinks that money is more important than people. If the people, environment, culture, and morale are correct, you have the opportunity to make money. If you focus on money, the lack of morale, the lack of culture will bring you down as a leader. The people in the organisation will find a way to get you out. They will.”

Isaac Getz is professor at ESCP Europe business school and co-author with B. Davids & B. Carney of “Leadership without Ego” (Palgrave MacMillan, 2019).

]]>https://freedomincbook.com/2019/02/22/our-op-ed-in-management-today-real-leaders-need-to-lose-the-ego/feed/0Patty McCord (Netflix) on what happens when a company looks less to control and more to trusthttps://freedomincbook.com/2019/02/10/patty-mccord-netflix-on-what-happens-when-a-company-looks-less-to-control-and-more-to-trust/
https://freedomincbook.com/2019/02/10/patty-mccord-netflix-on-what-happens-when-a-company-looks-less-to-control-and-more-to-trust/#respondSun, 10 Feb 2019 13:20:25 +0000https://freedomincbook.com/?p=1849We don’t know whether Netflix is a liberated company and whether its CEO is a liberating leader. That said, its former chief talent officer Patty McCord has shown that her new title wasn’t just a gimmick for … Continue reading Patty McCord (Netflix) on what happens when a company looks less to control and more to trust

]]>We don’t know whether Netflix is a liberated company and whether its CEO is a liberating leader. That said, its former chief talent officer Patty McCord has shown that her new title wasn’t just a gimmick for the old-style HR.

You can watch the TED session below and also consult her famous slides deck detailing Netflix corporate philosophy based on freedom and responsibility.

]]>https://freedomincbook.com/2019/02/10/patty-mccord-netflix-on-what-happens-when-a-company-looks-less-to-control-and-more-to-trust/feed/0Our new book “Leadership without Ego” just releasedhttps://freedomincbook.com/2018/12/10/our-new-book-leadership-without-ego-just-released/
https://freedomincbook.com/2018/12/10/our-new-book-leadership-without-ego-just-released/#respondMon, 10 Dec 2018 09:01:03 +0000https://freedomincbook.com/?p=1833Our new book written by Bob Davids, Brian Carney and Isaac Getz Leadership without Ego has been just released by Palgrave MacMilllan. Here is how the book is described on the front flap of its … Continue reading Our new book “Leadership without Ego” just released

]]>Our new book written by Bob Davids, Brian Carney and Isaac Getz Leadership without Ego has been just released by Palgrave MacMilllan.

Here is how the book is described on the front flap of its dust jacket:

If you take a chain, pile it up and then push it, what direction will it go? Nowhere you can predict and not very far. If you take it by the end and pull it, which way will it go? It will follow you.

Leadership is not about what sets you apart from those you lead—it’s about what binds you together. It is not about controlling others—it’s about trusting others. It’s not about your achievements—it’s about unleashing your team’s greatness.

Take Bob Davids, co-author of this book and successful leader of six businesses in fields as diverse as engineering and winemaking. His achievements often came thanks to being able to refrain from acting when others might have found intervening irresistible. By trusting his employees to be better than him in their area of responsibility and letting them act, Bob unleashed the human greatness that no one else—including employees themselves—suspected.

Yet to lead without acting does not mean doing nothing, it means creating conditions in which things happen by themselves.

Leadership without Ego is about a transformation of the concept of leadership in the past two decades—a change of beliefs about how best to lead, along with radically different leadership practices. The ideas in this book have already changed the fortunes of hundreds of businesses and the lives of tens of thousands of employees. They can do the same for your business, your people—and you.

We have participated in the plenary session “Human Potential – Are We Cracking the Code?” and talked about the liberating leadership inspired by our previous work and by the just released book Leadership without Ego co-written with Bob Davids and Brian Carney (Palgrave Macmillan).

]]>https://freedomincbook.com/2018/12/08/global-peter-drucker-forum-2018-our-speech-on-leadership-without-ego/feed/0The Spanish edition of “Freedom, Inc.”https://freedomincbook.com/2018/11/06/spanish-edition-of-freedom-inc/
https://freedomincbook.com/2018/11/06/spanish-edition-of-freedom-inc/#respondTue, 06 Nov 2018 20:41:26 +0000https://freedomincbook.com/?p=1808In our last blog post we have announced the release of our book’s Italian edition. In this post we are happy to annouce the release of our book’s Spanish edition. The book launch will be … Continue reading The Spanish edition of “Freedom, Inc.”

]]>https://freedomincbook.com/2018/11/06/spanish-edition-of-freedom-inc/feed/0The Italian edition of “Freedom, Inc.” has been launchedhttps://freedomincbook.com/2018/10/18/the-italian-edition-of-freedom-inc-has-been-launched/
https://freedomincbook.com/2018/10/18/the-italian-edition-of-freedom-inc-has-been-launched/#respondThu, 18 Oct 2018 14:41:59 +0000https://freedomincbook.com/?p=1801On October 8, Brian and Isaac have participated in the event launching the Italian edition of our book which has been organized by the think tank Bruno Leoni in Milano to whom we are grateful. … Continue reading The Italian edition of “Freedom, Inc.” has been launched

]]>https://freedomincbook.com/2018/10/18/the-italian-edition-of-freedom-inc-has-been-launched/feed/0Give Your Team the Freedom: our article in Harvard Business Reviewhttps://freedomincbook.com/2018/09/11/give-your-team-the-freedom-our-article-in-harvard-business-review/
https://freedomincbook.com/2018/09/11/give-your-team-the-freedom-our-article-in-harvard-business-review/#respondTue, 11 Sep 2018 17:54:38 +0000https://freedomincbook.com/?p=1786We have just published on hbr.org a short article. It updates where we are in the coporate liberation and restates some principles that every manager willing to enter it must know. Give Your Team the … Continue reading Give Your Team the Freedom: our article in Harvard Business Review

]]>We have just published on hbr.org a short article. It updates where we are in the coporate liberation and restates some principles that every manager willing to enter it must know.

Give Your Team the Freedom to Do the Work They Think Matters Most

Brian Carney & Isaac Getz SEPTEMBER 10, 2018

Since at least the time of Frederick Taylor, the father of “scientific management,” control has been central to corporate organization: Control of costs, of prices, of investment and—not least—of people.

Control, even a perception of it, can be comforting. Moreover, it feels like what a manager should be doing: Setting targets, monitoring adherence to procedures, directing, shaping the future of the business. Control feelsessential—especially if you are the boss.

Except it turns out that far from being vital, top-down control carries serious costs, many of which have been hiding in plain sight. What is more, there is an alternative. And not a pie-in-the-sky fantasy conjured up on a whiteboard, but a real, working alternative. It has been practiced to varying degrees in companies around the world for decades. And in France in particular, it is taking on the character of a movement. Companies as large as Michelin and Carrefour are questioning their control structures and seeing real results from replacing them.

This alternative has never had a name because—fittingly, as you’ll see—it hasn’t really had a guru. Its principles have been passed from business leader to business leader like samizdat. But more recently it has started to come into the open. We call it corporate liberation.

]]>https://freedomincbook.com/2018/09/11/give-your-team-the-freedom-our-article-in-harvard-business-review/feed/0Our book has won the Best Business Book of the Year Awardhttps://freedomincbook.com/2018/05/31/our-book-has-won-the-best-business-book-of-the-year-award/
https://freedomincbook.com/2018/05/31/our-book-has-won-the-best-business-book-of-the-year-award/#respondThu, 31 May 2018 17:17:21 +0000https://freedomincbook.com/?p=1766Our book “The liberated company” (in French) which came out with Fayard in Nov. 2017, has won the Best Business Book of the Year award by Rotary France. The ceremony has been held in the French … Continue reading Our book has won the Best Business Book of the Year Award

]]>Our book “The liberated company” (in French) which came out with Fayard in Nov. 2017, has won the Best Business Book of the Year award by Rotary France.

The ceremony has been held in the French Parliament (Assemblée Nationale) on May 2016.

The book consists of various writings that we have published on the liberated company philosophy and on the corporate liberation movement. It also contains some unpublished texts, in particular, on the link between schools/education and the liberated company philosophy.

]]>https://freedomincbook.com/2018/05/31/our-book-has-won-the-best-business-book-of-the-year-award/feed/0Leaders must abandon their egoshttps://freedomincbook.com/2018/04/30/leaders-must-abandon-egos/
https://freedomincbook.com/2018/04/30/leaders-must-abandon-egos/#respondMon, 30 Apr 2018 17:29:07 +0000https://freedomincbook.com/?p=1760Leaders must abandon their egos Jenny Roper, APRIL 17, 2018 Having a large ego might be necessary to become CEO but will ultimately hold an organisation back Leaders must abandon their egos and be truly authentic … Continue reading Leaders must abandon their egos

Having a large ego might be necessary to become CEO but will ultimately hold an organisation back

Leaders must abandon their egos and be truly authentic to be most effective, according to Isaac Getz, professor of leadership and innovation at ESCP Europe Business School and co-author of Freedom, Inc.

Speaking exclusively to HR magazine ahead of the publication of his forthcoming book Leadership Without Ego, co-authored with Robert Davids and Brian Carney, Getz stressed the importance of leaders empowering staff to think and make decisions for themselves, and the importance of abandoning ego to achieve this.

“Ego is a very important part of CEO image… [but] if a CEO wants to transform their organisation around trust they need to start with themselves,” said Getz. “If they haven’t abandoned their own ego, if they think they’re the most intelligent person in the organisation and can second guess the directions of others, then all the nice talk about trust is just useless.”

]]>https://freedomincbook.com/2018/04/30/leaders-must-abandon-egos/feed/0ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: ENSLAVING OR LIBERATING US? Conference in Parishttps://freedomincbook.com/2018/04/13/artificial-intelligence-enslaving-liberating-us-conference-paris/
https://freedomincbook.com/2018/04/13/artificial-intelligence-enslaving-liberating-us-conference-paris/#respondFri, 13 Apr 2018 19:50:23 +0000https://freedomincbook.com/?p=1752Global Peter Drucker Forum is organizing in Paris a run-up of its November event in Vienna. The run-up’s topic, in which we are invited to participate, is the human dimension of the Artificial Intelligence. It takes place … Continue reading ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: ENSLAVING OR LIBERATING US? Conference in Paris